Ah, the annual top-16 reveal. A mid-February tradition that—wait—where’s my top-16 reveal? I swear it was just here. Where did my top-16 reveal go?!
For some reason unbeknownst to me, the NCAA Tournament selection committee has decided to push back its top-16 bracket preview show to the Saturday a week after the Super Bowl, rather than the week of, as it had always been in the past. I suppose this is fine; it allows teams another seven days to fine-tune their tournament résumés, with this preliminary adjudication coming a bit closer to the actual day of judgment, painting a picture of the top of the bracket that is much more likely to hold its shape.
All in all, this is probably a good change for the teams. But what about me?! My second edition of Bauer’s Bubble Watch has always relied on the top-16 reveal for its intro, damnit! What am I supposed to do? Be creative and write about something else? Ha! As if!
OK, so I don’t really have anything burning in my soul to write about here. I could write about the Alabama/Bediako stuff again, but that’s old news. I could write about the mess that is the whole Kansas State/Jerome Tang situation, but that has no bearing on the bubble since the Wildcats have been eliminated for weeks. I could rank all 200+ Pink Floyd songs from favorite to least favorite, but frankly, that’s neither here nor there. (Maybe I’ll get to that one someday though.)
But, honestly, does Bubble Watch really need an intro? I know why you’re here, you know why you’re here: to Control+F your team and read about where they stand in the current NCAA Tournament picture. So… Why don’t we just do that? Yeah, that actually sounds pretty nice. Save some words for next week when the top-16 preview has actually happened. Let’s call it a date.
Anyhoo, here’s how everything breaks down in Week 2 of Bauer’s Bubble Watch: five new locks to christen, a bit of jostling between the safe and bubble categories, and one bubble case to re-inflate:
Sometimes, it’s good to just jump right in. Don’t get too used to it.
ACC
OK, so it’s admittedly a bit worrying to lock a team into total tournament certainty, especially one with relatively weak quality metrics compared to the rest of the locks, and then watch as their 6’10” do-it-all freshman who leads the team in scoring, rebounding, AND assists is ruled out indefinitely with a broken hand, all while numerous hurdles remain on the regular season schedule. (If you haven’t figured out who I’m talking about yet, it’s North Carolina.) Those concerns were not alleviated one bit on Tuesday night, as the Tar Heels got walloped in Raleigh. But I’ve made my bed! If UNC absolutely implodes down the stretch without Caleb Wilson and somehow misses the postseason completely, then I’ll just have to live with the fact that I locked them too early. That said, can North Carolina actually miss the tournament? I don’t think so. Even if the bottom falls out and they go something like 1-4 to finish the regular season, they’d likely still have more than 2 Wins Above Bubble, which would have placed the Tar Heels at least 34th in last year’s final NET rankings, i.e., easily in the field. I think they’re in, no matter what.
You know who else is in no matter what? The Louisville Cardinals! As I wrote a week ago, the efficiency metrics have been in love with Louisville since the opening tip, despite the fact that the results metrics have lagged behind all season. At last, that gap is beginning to shrink, as the Cardinals logged a third-straight Quad 1 or 2 win on Saturday by disposing of Baylor in a neutral-court game in name only. (It was played in Fort Worth.) I’m not even perturbed by the fact that Louisville couldn’t hold on to its 8-point lead at SMU on Tuesday night; the numbers have said that the Cardinals were an elite team all along, and they’re finally starting to play like it… though perhaps they could tighten things up a bit on the defensive end. I’m just nitpicking, though—Louisville is a lock.
Clemson: I was operating under the assumption that Clemson would be joining Louisville in the Week 2 batch of ACC locks; so much for that. Losing at Duke? Not a big deal—nearly every team does that. Losing at home to Virginia Tech? Different story. That’s far and away the Tigers’ worst loss of 2025-26, usurping even a mid-November defeat at Georgetown WAB-wise. As such, Clemson’s team sheet sinks from an unremarkable-but-still-cozy 6 seed to a slightly less sightly low 7 or high 8 seed. (Didn’t think it would be possible for a team that was once 10-1 in a vastly improved ACC to have to worry about potentially lining up against a 1 seed in the second round, but here we are.) Still, there’s plenty of time for Clemson to climb back up; a Quad 1 win in Winston-Salem would be nice to see after Duke just snapped the Tigers’ lengthy conference road winning streak. Then it’s back home on Saturday to play Florida State… who just won by 23 at the very same Virginia Tech team that knocked off Clemson last Wednesday. Ain’t that a cruel twist of fate?
Miami (FL): Wow, Miami’s postseason case has gone from somewhat precarious to extremely solid quite quickly. After reeling off their first victory of the season against a fellow tournament team by beating North Carolina last Tuesday, the Hurricanes made it two in a row, scoring the last eight points of the game in the final minute to stun NC State in Raleigh. Those two wins were enough for Miami to rise from right around the tournament’s cut line to a projected 8 or 9 seed in under a week. Tack on a sweaty survival over Virginia Tech on Tuesday night, and the ‘Canes are now 9-4 in Quad 1/2 with résumé ranks just shy of the 20s at just the right time. That’s not the profile of a bubble team; that’s the profile of a team comfortably in the field. A round of applause for Jai Lucas, immediately righting the ship from last year’s 7-24 disaster with an all-new cast of characters, in his first season at the helm, no less. An ACC Coach of the Year award may very well be in his future.
NC State: That’s gotta feel cathartic. There’s nothing that NC State loves more than beating North Carolina, a scene that’s played out relatively few times over the past decade; the Wolfpack have gone just 3-17 in the regular season against their baby-blue-clad rivals across that span. To top it off, each of those three wins have come by single digits. Simply put, there has been nothing in recent history resembling NC State’s 82-58 smackdown of UNC, a firm statement that the Will Wade Wolfpack is here, and they’re ready to play hardball. Problem is, I can’t just overlook what happened on Saturday either, as NC State fell at home for the fourth time this season, this one coming at the hands of a surging Miami. Metric-wise, that loss does a little more damage than the UNC win does good, even if the euphoria of the latter is much more palpable than the sting of the former. That’s why you’ll still see the Wolfpack forecasted a 7 or 8 seed in most circles. But if they can ride the high for a full week into next Tuesday’s bout at John Paul Jones Arena, then a better spot in the bracket is certainly in the cards.
SMU: Deep breaths, Mustangs. It’s all going to be OK… maybe. If I were an SMU fan, I surely would have been losing my mind on Saturday, as Syracuse’s Nate Kingz nailed a tough lefty layup (and arguably traveled in the process) with two seconds remaining, securing a win for the Orange in a game that the Mustangs led nearly wire-to-wire. In isolation, that’s just a Quad 1 loss—no biggie. But in the grand scheme of things, that defeat is the latest in a troubling trend for the Ponies, who, with their zero Quad 1A victories in tow, have watched their projected 6 seed from early January trickle its way to the 10 line as of this week. Very easy to get antsy over that kind of downward movement. But the slow-burning slide has finally been put on pause after the Mustangs mercifully picked up Quad 1A win #1 on Tuesday in a 58% shooting night against NET #15 Louisville. Good thing too, ’cause three of SMU’s last five are on the road, and the opponents (bubble battlers Cal and Stanford, sneaky Florida State) aren’t particularly easy pickings. Tuesday’s win over the Cardinals could be gargantuan four Sundays from now.
California: Welp, I wrote last week that a serious California postseason case includes a win at Syracuse last Wednesday night. That, of course, did not happen, as the Golden Bears and Orange battled for 50 minutes in a double-OT thriller in which neither team ever led by more than seven points, all while the scorer’s table used an intramural-style scoreboard to keep track of points due to a power outage in the Carrier Dome, eventually resulting in a victory for the home team. (Syracuse sure does like causing trouble for bubble teams, huh?) Not good for Cal, who direly needs those kind of games to go their way with résumé metrics in the 50s and a 4-8 record in Quad 1/2. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel; all four of those aforementioned victories reside in the upper quadrant, and the remaining schedule offers plenty of opportunity to bulk up the other lacking numbers, all in extremely winnable games—vs. Stanford, vs. SMU, and at Wake Forest being the most notable of the bunch. We may need a 5-0 push here to see the Golden Bears dance for the first time in a decade, but that push is shockingly doable.
Virginia Tech: How much heartbreak can one team handle? Virginia Tech has been on the losing end of enough nail-biters this season to last a lifetime, ranging anywhere from ceding a 17-3 run in the final three minutes of a home loss to Stanford, to falling at SMU on a Boopie Miller half-court heave. Add Tuesday’s loss at Miami to the list, as Jailen Bedford whiffed on a corner three down one with nearly a full shot clock, before Ben Hammond’s game-winner-to-be rolled off the rim. It’s just dagger after dagger, man. The L in Coral Gables wouldn’t be so bad had the Hokies not failed to show up on Saturday, losing by 23 at home to Florida State for their first Quad 3 defeat of the season at the most inopportune time possible. Thank god for that win at Clemson on Wednesday, or VT’s goose (or turkey or chicken or whatever the heck a “HokieBird” is) might already be cooked. Two more résumé-changers remain with trips to Chapel Hill and Charlottesville still on the slate. At this point, I’m crossing my fingers that the Hokies can find a way to get it done and sneak into the postseason. Otherwise, all this season-long suffering has been for naught.
Stanford: With Stanford yielding a 13-3 run late to lose at Wake Forest on Saturday, a game in which the Cardinal led for about 90% of it, I could easily just end the suffering here and pop their bubble for good. But I can think of four good reasons not to: Quad 1 win #1, Quad 1 win #2, Quad 1 win #3, and Quad 1 win #4. Simply put, Stanford’s got the high-end stuff necessary for a bid. They just need, well, everything else. Résumé metrics in the 60s, quality metrics in the 70s, three Quad 3 losses, a 266th-ranked non-conference strength of schedule… Doesn’t seem likely to cut it. But then my mind rushes back to scars of 2022 Dayton, whose profile honestly tracks quite similarly with the current Cardinal (61.5 résumé average, three Q1 wins, multiple Q3/4 losses), surprising every soul on planet Earth by being the selection committee’s first team out of the field. Even then, I still think that comparison is a bit disingenuous; that Dayton team did beat a 1 seed in Kansas, after all (Stanford’s best win is probably Saint Louis on a neutral floor), and it’s quite apparent that the selection committee’s reliance on metrics, especially with the advent of WAB, has grown significantly since then. And that’s just not very good news for Stanford. Say… Wanna pick up a fifth Quad 1 win in Berkeley on Saturday?
BIG 12
Last week, I wrote about how much I’ve enjoyed watching the Big Ten this year, simply because the games between the heavyweights at the top of the conference have been bangers every time. I guess the Big 12 took that as a slight, ’cause the elite matchups in this league have absolutely delivered as well. Kansas as Texas Tech, Texas Tech at Arizona, Arizona at Kansas, Houston at Iowa State… Every one of these clash-of-the-titans-type games since the calendar flipped to February has been sensational. (Well, except for Kansas’ blowout at Iowa State. Guess they can’t ALL be winners.) So, what does the Big 12 have in store this week to keep our interest piqued? Just a battle between two potential 1 seeds in Arizona vs. Houston on Saturday, followed by the Cougars taking their 24-3 or 23-4 record on the road to Allen Fieldhouse on Monday. Good god, are we spoiled.
BYU: Devastating. Richie Saunders’ ACL tear may be the single most significant injury of the entire 2025-26 season, not just because the white headband is a beloved icon in Provo, but also because the Cougars are 25 games deep and they still haven’t found anybody outside of AJ Dybantsa and Robert Wright capable of replicating his scoring output. Those three have produced 18+ points a night; no one else on the roster is even averaging 8. Absolutely atrocious timing for such a setback, given the gauntlet ahead: three protected seed likelies in Kansas, Iowa State, and Texas Tech, a slipping UCF hungry for a get-right win, and visits to West Virginia and Cincinnati teams clearly capable of causing some chaos. Thankfully, BYU has plenty of pad between itself and the bubble, all metrics but T-Rank situated inside the top-30, with 11 Quad 1/2 wins to boot. But what happens if the worst-case scenario unfolds with Saunders sidelined? I’d have nightmares just thinking about. Someone else not wearing #1 or #3 needs to step up, and fast.
UCF: Phew, back on track. It was getting a bit hairy there for UCF, losers of three straight—at Houston by 24 (it happens), at Cincinnati by 20 (not good), and home against West Virginia by 7 (uh-oh). The Knights have long had a profile worthy of entrance to the big dance, notching victories over Kansas, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M (in College Station) across the course of the season, but their unfortunate tendency to win by close margins and lose in blowout fashion—as we saw in two of the last three L’s—has made UCF an enemy of the quality metrics unanimously (48th or worse in each of BPI, KenPom, and T-Rank). Tuesday’s no-nonsense win over TCU was a stark departure from that, going a long way to keep UCF’s suddenly sinking résumé metrics in check, while also serving as reassurance that the Knights are indeed on track for their first NCAA Tournament appearance since Tacko Fall roamed the streets of Orlando. (I miss the old American Conference.)
TCU: Things are getting awfully interesting in Fort Worth. I, like most, left TCU for dead not longer after the Horned Frogs opened the 2025-26 season by losing to NET #218 New Orleans at home: the kind of loss that tends to leave you on the couch for March, right out of the get-go. I did keep the door ever so slightly ajar when TCU picked itself back up to knock off Florida and Wisconsin on consecutive nights, but I never really gave them much of a chance after that, not after losing at conference doormat Utah to start Big 12 play 1-4. But, as it turns out, we may have a tournament team on our hands after all. The Horned Frogs promptly followed up last week’s weighty win over Iowa State with an overtime dub at Oklahoma State, moving TCU well ahead of the Cowboys in the Big 12 bubble pecking order—a result that was enough for many to move the Frogs into the field altogether, myself included. Tuesday night’s letdown at UCF probably puts a lid on that idea for now (the Horned Frogs traveled to Orlando; the 12 threes that they hit in Stillwater sure didn’t), but their fate is far from sealed, with four of the final five games on the docket looking extremely winnable. This could be an all-time comeback story if they finish the job.
West Virginia: Welcome to the Watch, West Virginia. We’ve been expecting you. I was very close to having the Mountaineers on the page last week, ultimately opting against it with most metrics in or near the 60s and not enough wins outside of Morgantown (2-7 neutral/away), a home victory over Kansas being WVU’s lone significant result. But one win in Orlando later, the Mountaineers are officially bubble-bound. Still much work to do before they can find themselves in the field of 68, but West Virginia’s road ahead is the perfect combination of helpful and manageable: gimmes against Utah and Kansas State, Quad 1 road trips to fellow bubblers TCU and Oklahoma State, a date in WVU Coliseum with injury-laden BYU, and a rematch with UCF in the regular season finale. 4-2 is absolutely doable against that stretch, and it would have WVU knocking on the door of a bid, if not inside the bracket altogether. They’ll need to be a bit more consistent offensively to take full advantage of their opportunities—the Mountaineers rank 185th, 158th, and a dastardly 323rd in 3P%, 2P%, and FT% respectively—but a tournament case that looked quite unserious at the start of 2026 is now anything but.
Oklahoma State: Dreams of a March Madness berth in Stillwater are fading fast. The high of Oklahoma State’s triumph over BYU on Feb. 4 has already unraveled, as consecutive losses to Arizona, Arizona State, and TCU—the latest blow coming at home—have dropped OSU’s WAB below where it was prior to that 99-point outburst against the Cougars. The Cowboys have undoubtedly stepped up in year two under Steve Lutz (they were on the tournament radar for approximately 0% of the 2024-25 campaign), but at 4-8 in conference play, they just don’t seem ready to compete with the madhouse that is the Big 12 quite yet. There’s very little reason to be confident about any of the six games left; the only remaining contest in which Oklahoma State is actually favored to win—and only just—is West Virginia’s visit to Gallagher-Iba on Feb. 24. If they can’t keep it respectable against Kansas on Wednesday and beat Colorado in Boulder on Saturday, the Cowboys’ case may not even make it that far.
BIG EAST
We’re good to go on St. John’s. The Red Storm successfully avenged their only defeat in conference play to this point, taking down Providence in a game where the actual result on the court was a far less interesting topic of discussion than the bench-clearing brawl that ensued—one where Rick Pitino himself looked ready to square up and dole out some punishment. (A 73-year-old Italian man is just about the last person on earth I’d want to mess with.) The main fallout here, other than Duncan Powell’s three-game suspension for his role in the fight (he should get another three games for that haircut), is that the Red Storm have won 11 straight, are now 7-0 on the road, and are in a territory metrically where they can safely withstand any sort of remaining blows that a weaker-than-usual Big East may try to dole out. Save for a win in Hartford next Wednesday, I still think a protected seed is out of the picture, due to that 0-4 clip in their four toughest non-conference games. But, in any case, the Johnnies can celebrate, set for back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since 2000. Slick Rick does it again.
Villanova: “What are you doing not locking a 21-5 Big East team? Are you insane?” Well, to answer your second question: obviously—why else would I willingly write 8,000+ words every week for no reason other than the love of the game? That’s not a choice a sane mind makes. To answer your first question, I’m being cautious. The Big East is just not very good this year—you would know that if you read last week’s Bubble Watch article—and Villanova’s 21-5 record has mostly been built through balsa wood and Elmer’s glue, a.k.a., beating up on bad Big East teams, the Wildcats still sitting at 0-3 in Quad 1A. It’s just not that impressive of a team sheet when you dig into the details! But let’s be real—Villanova’s not missing the tournament. If Nova goes 3-2 the rest of the way, losing to UConn and St. John’s and beating Butler, DePaul, and Xavier like I expect they will, they’ll probably be stuck in the 7-8 range due to having come up short in all their biggest games, but they’d be nowhere near danger of missing the dance completely. Beat the Huskies in Philly on Saturday—hell, just keep it close—and we’ll seal this thing up for good.
Seton Hall: Survival: That’s the name of the game for Seton Hall. Since I lamented the Pirates’ mid-winter swoon in Big East play last week, they’ve done what was necessary to keep their head above a water, fending off Providence on Wednesday night before picking up their seventh win of the season outside of Newark on Sunday at Butler: a Quad 2 result that could quite easily end up in Quad 1 by season’s end. A while neither one moves the needle very much in terms of making a push back into the projected at-large field, they do demonstrate that Seton Hall is still capable of winning the games it needs to in order to stay in this thing—a notion that was far from certain at this time seven days ago. It’s another week of survival ahead with Georgetown and DePaul each headed to the Prudential Center, then the behemoth task of slaying UConn in Storrs on the final day of February awaits.
BIG TEN
Is anyone beating Michigan this year? That might be a silly question to ask, given that it could very well be answered with ‘yes’ as soon as this Saturday when the Wolverines square off against fellow 1 seed Duke in DC. But, my god, do they look incredible. All of last week, Purdue totally looked the part of a national powerhouse that had finally turned the corner, compiling back-to-back road wins against Nebraska and Iowa in games that they led by as many as 22 and 27 points, respectively. Surely they would give Michigan a fight, if not upset the Wolverines outright, upon returning to Mackey Arena with 15,000 screaming Boilermakers fans in attendance, right? Well, it was close for about seven minutes. Then Michigan bolted out to a 15-point lead in the blink of an eye, eventually going on to lead by nearly 30 for their NCAA-leading 10th Quad 1 victory of the year. The Wolverines now have a three-point cushion in KenPom between themselves and second place, standing as KP’s second-strongest team of all time behind only ’99 Duke. They’re as scary as scary gets.
Wisconsin: Of course someone is beating Michigan this year—Wisconsin already beat ’em, dummy! The Badgers have been as thoroughly confounding of a team to figure out as anybody, frequently interspersing acts of herculean strength against college basketball’s elite with bewildering no-shows against opponents of similar ilk. This week was no exception. Wisconsin had no problem handling Michigan State in Madison on Friday, coasting to a breezy 21-point victory over the Spartans, marking the third time this season that the Badgers have conquered a conference foe aiming for a protected seed. Then, like clockwork, Wisconsin waltzed into Columbus to play an Ohio State team starving for quality victories and promptly laid down and died without much fuss. (You merely adopted chaos—Wisconsin was born in it, molded by it!) As such, the Badgers’ metrics, which mostly reside in the low 30s, prevent me from locking them into total tournament certainty just yet. But, c’mon. They’re the only team to beat Michigan. And they did it in Ann Arbor. Just give Iowa the ol’ 1-2 on Sunday, and we can put a bow on it.
Iowa: Sometimes 57 points can win you a game, sometimes 57 points can lose you a game. The latter tends to be truer than the former, as we saw on Saturday afternoon in Iowa City, as the Hawkeyes once again failed to provide Bennett Stirtz with any support against a superior foe, the star guard’s teammates tallying just 38 points in never-close loss to Purdue. More of the same against Nebraska on Tuesday… except this time, the Hawkeyes actually held up on the defensive end, holding the typically hot-shooting Cornhuskers to just 5-of-24 from deep, despite only 6 splashes on 24 three-point tries of their own. It was an ugly win, no question about it. But it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and a Quad 1A victory over a hated rival sure looks beautiful to the Iowa faithful just the same. The Hawkeyes are probably set for March at this point; just gotta hold serve in the final five and hopefully pull an upset or two to get that projected seed in a better spot. (Also, please, please give Stirtz some more scoring help. I’m begging you.)
Indiana: Can two or three big wins carry a team sheet to the tournament that is almost completely devoid elsewhere? This is as good a time as any to show off WAB Watch, a really nifty website that displays in real time the weight that each win and loss carries in WAB, i.e., Wins Above Bubble. Now, WAB Watch does utilize Bart Torvik’s WAB, which itself is based on T-Rank, meaning it’s a bit different from the NCAA’s NET-based WAB, but the way WAB is calculated is still the same: take the percent chance that a bubble team, ranked about 45th in NET, would win against a given opponent, then subtract that number from 1 for a win, or subtract that number from 0 for a loss. That means if a bubble team would have a 22% of chance of winning my next game, I would earn 0.78 WAB with a win, or lose 0.22 WAB with a loss. Really cool! This now brings me to Indiana, whose dreadful 4-9 mark in Quad 1/2 seems to clash with an OK 43.7 résumé metric average and ranking of 41st in WAB. Here’s why: Across their three biggest victories (vs. Purdue, at UCLA, vs. Wisconsin), Indiana has accrued 1.83 WAB. But IU presently sits at 1.16 overall, meaning their other 23 games played are responsible for -0.67 WAB! And thus, I ask again: Can two or three big wins carry a team sheet to the tournament that is almost completely devoid elsewhere? I’m really not sure. Make it a fourth big win with a sweep of the Boilermakers on Friday, and I might change my tune.
USC: Not much to say about USC since they haven’t played in a week, with last Wednesday’s tight loss at Ohio State predictably doing little to sway the Trojans’ tournament outlook in either direction. It’ll be a much different story a week from now; settle in for a loaded slate down in SoCal, as USC welcomes in Illinois on Wednesday night before doing the same to Oregon on Saturday, followed by the first crosstown showdown of the season at UCLA on Tuesday. As such, the Trojans’ postseason hopes could look really good or really bad pending how those three games go. Though, if I had to take a wild guess, I’d assume that USC gets beat pretty good by Illinois, takes care of business against Oregon, and then loses by a bucket or two in Pauley Pavilion heading into next week’s Watch. Where exactly would that kind of week put the Trojans? Probably right about where they are right now. The life of a bubble team, y’all.
UCLA: Getting clobbered by a collective 53 points over the course of two games in the Wolverine State: Not ideal! Thank god for Mick Cronin, the man with a temper taller than himself, for willingly stepping up and taking the attention away from his team’s poor performances of recent. He had a good one on Saturday after the Michigan loss, throwing his team under the bus for the umpteenth time while shouldering no blame of his own. But Tuesday in East Lansing was truly an all-timer for ol’ Mick, first ejecting his OWN player for committing a flagrant foul late, something I’ve never seen in 15 or so years of watching college basketball, then cussing out a reporter postgame for asking a relevant question about UCLA’s Xavier Booker, who suited up for Sparty the prior two seasons. Man is speedrunning a career crash-out in record time. Coincidentally, UCLA is crashing out of the tournament field with the same swiftness, their entire postseason argument essentially hinging on a single home win over Purdue from a month ago. I get the feeling that this season isn’t going to end well for anyone involved.
Ohio State: 0-8 in Quad 1, 17-1 in Quads 2-4. That’s the Buckeyes in a nutshell, alright. (Is a Buckeye a nut?) Though this Ohio State team is certainly resemblant of recent lukewarm Buckeye groups, it’s last year’s North Carolina team that OSU is pulling off its best impression of. With good quality metrics, acceptable résumé metrics, and a single Quadrant 1 win in 13 tries, the Tar Heels finished 2025 as the final team selected into the at-large field, much to the ire of just about everybody outside of Chapel Hill. Ohio State is in the exact same boat—both the efficiency and results numbers say that that the Buckeyes should probably be included. But how can you possibly justify making room for a team that’s lost every single time that they’ve taken the floor in a game of NCAA Tournament caliber? I can maybe overlook a team that’s gone winless against Quad 1 but succeeded everywhere else if they were only given two or three opportunities; I cannot afford the same luxury to a team that’s had eight separate attempts and failed them all. And given the intense pushback from UNC’s undeserved bid last season, I’m willing to bet that the selection committee may feel the same way.
SEC
Let’s go ahead and lock Alabama. Last week, I posited that a Crimson Tide team post-Charles Bediako should have to prove that they’re still tournament material without the big man in Tuscaloosa any longer, given that the selection committee’s assessment of the Tide will be based on the team they take into March. Conclusion: Yeah, they’re gonna be just fine. In the first game without their seven-footer, Alabama overcame an early deficit to knock off Ole Miss by 19 in Oxford, before leading by double digits in most of the second half of Saturday’s 14-point victory over South Carolina. Dubious decision-making on the part of Nate Oats by bringing in Bediako in the first place? Perhaps. But his team’s postseason aspirations are without question.
Joining the Tide in lock heaven is Arkansas, now 19-6 and 9-3 in the SEC, a year removed from being 15-11 and 4-9 in those same categories. These Razorbacks have been far more consistent than last year’s bubble bunch, thanks in large part to the play of superstar freshman Darius Acuff, which has more so resembled that of a seasoned veteran than a college newbie. Ball-handling, facilitation, movement, scoring from all three levels… the man does it all. I mean, he hasn’t put up fewer than 17 in a game since before Thanksgiving, posting more than 20 in each of the last six. How has a guy who was the #7 recruit in all of college basketball seemingly flown under the radar? The freshman revolution of 2026 has been nothing short of astonishing.
And while we’re at it, let’s lock Tennessee too. Aside from a sweep at the hands of Kentucky, a team that they haven’t beaten in the regular season in over two years (Hey, this blurb is supposed to be about celebrating Tennessee, not rubbing salt in the wound!), the Volunteers have knocked out everyone on their schedule in the past month, elevating their profile from a rather underwhelming visage following that 91-67 blowout loss at Florida, to just shy of protected-seed territory. Still not thrilled with that 4-7 mark against Quad 1 opposition, obviously, but when all four of those wins are also in Quad 1A—including a neutral-court victory over Houston at Players Era back in November—I’m willing to forget and forgive. The Vols have never been worse than a 5 seed in their seven NCAA Tournament appearances under Rick Barnes; we’ll just have to wait and see if they can make it eight-for-eight.
Kentucky: Lol. Lmao, even. It’s self-fulfilling prophecy at this point, right? This is what I wrote in Kentucky’s blurb last week, as I poked fun at their mercurial style of play and even more mercurial fanbase: “I can’t wait for UK to get blown out at Florida this weekend before dropping a stinker to Georgia on Tuesday, only to then win out the remainder of the regular season.” You’re welcome, Big Blue Nation! You’re guaranteed to finished the year 5-0 now! But seriously—how does Kentucky pull off these wild swings in performance with such admirable consistency? The main reason that BBN wanted off Calipari’s Wild Ride in the first place is this exact thing: streakiness so abnormal that it becomes the norm. And while I still think that Mark Pope is a great coach (he led BYU to three NCAA Tournament bids out of the WCC and took UK to the Sweet Sixteen in year one), the change up top has done nothing to quell the Cats’ propensity for breaking their fans’ brains. Is it a coaching problem? Or an institutional problem? In either case, Wildcats fans may need to be checked into an institution by the time this season ends. Just don’t forget that that 5-0 finish is on its way.
Auburn: You’re really gonna push this thing, huh, Auburn? It seems like there’s always one team willing to test the selection committee’s tolerance for losing games by creeping as close as possible to the unwritten rule about a team’s overall record. In short, no team in the past 24 years has ever received an at-large bid while being fewer than three games over .500, 2001 Georgia being the last to do so at 16-14. The committee’s come close to breaking that rule on a couple occasions, the most recent example being last year’s Ohio State, who snuck into the First Four Out at 17-15, but they’ve never wavered. Could Auburn be the first to break tradition? There’s a lot of signs pointing to yes, namely the Tigers’ #1 overall strength-of-schedule, win at Florida, and team-sheet metrics all indicative of an 8 or 9 seed. But why even bother testing it? There’s really no need to make it all so difficult, not when the Tigers are favored in five of their last six. Just take care of business down the stretch, and this whole situation will resolve itself. Sheesh.
Texas: Maybe this year’s Texas team isn’t so similar to the Longhorns of last year. I made the comparison last week, drawing attention to how Texas’ solid quality metrics, shaky résumé metrics, and penchant for both Quad 1 wins and Quad 4 padding, creating an overall record below .500 across Quadrants 1-3, all fared near identically to the First Four-bound Longhorns of 2025. But perhaps I was wrong to pass judgment so soon. After all, Texas has flipped its 5-8 conference record at this time a year ago to 8-5, now sustaining top-end wins with résumé numbers (47 KPI, 40 SOR, 40 WAB) that actually support a bid. I still think an encore appearance in Dayton is very much on the table, just based on the difficulty of Texas’ upcoming schedule (at Georgia, vs. Florida, at Texas A&M, at Arkansas), but at least the full profile feels much more complete—and the team feels much more like a team—than what we got last March.
Texas A&M: Hey, Texas A&M—I said a lot of pretty nice things about you last week, about how you can actually shoot the ball for once and how losses to Florida and Alabama really shouldn’t derail what has been an awesome year for the Aggies up to this point… Think you could repay the favor by not making me look like a knucklehead just a week later? A strong season in College Station has turned sour very quickly, as after starting their SEC slate 7-1, A&M has yet to win a game in February, last week’s losses to Missouri and Vanderbilt being the latest in a slew of really poor defensive efforts not previously seen. That résumé metric average of 48.3 is now dangerously close to crossing the 50 threshold, a territory from which few at-large hopefuls make it out alive. My gut still says that the Aggies are mostly fine, as three Quad 1A wins against each of Auburn, Texas, and Georgia—all on the road—are a better collection of victories than the majority of the bubble possesses. But a projected 10 or 11 seed sounds a lot less enticing than the 7 or 8 seed that A&M had been in line for less than a month ago. Shake these blues against Ole Miss and Oklahoma this week, if you could kindly.
Georgia: Season-saver in Lexington, no doubt about it. Georgia had been drifting toward danger for the better part of a month, losing four out of five since Jan. 20’s wild win at Missouri, before adding another tick to the L column in the form of Saturday’s embarrassing second half at Oklahoma, the Bulldogs allowing an 18-0 run by the Sooners just after halftime in an eventual 16-point squishing. (Still somehow only the second most disastrous thing to happen during that game—pretty good metaphor in there for Georgia’s last four weeks.) But just when it looked like UGA was ready to fully implode, the Dawgs hunkered down in Rupp, knocking down 14 triples to upend Kentucky in Lexington for the first time in 17 years and collect their first Quad 1A win of the year. Highly necessary result, especially for a profile like Georgia’s that boasts the 302nd-ranked non-conference strength of schedule. That number will not fare the Bulldogs well if it’s a close call on Selection Sunday. Better keep winning to create some more wiggle room.
Missouri: Now that’s just classic Mizzou right there. Pick up one of the biggest wins of your season on Wednesday night with a late rally at Texas A&M, then get smoked at home on Saturday by fellow bubble team Texas. A net zero if there ever was one! Truly, those two games leave the Tigers almost exactly where they were before the week began: solid on top-of-the-line victories (2-3 in Quad 1A) but hard-pressed for quality elsewhere. Thankfully for Missouri, that quality comes in droves over the next two-and-a-half weeks; it’s Quad 1 contests out the wazoo, save for a Quad 2 dip to Starkville on Feb. 28. But that’s a double-edged sword, as both KenPom and Torvik have the opponent favored in all six remaining games. The Tigers have already won as outright underdogs thrice this year against Florida, Kentucky, and now A&M just a week ago… Can you win three more? A split the rest of the way would probably be sufficient for a bid. Make it happen, Mizzou!
OTHERS
No locks to hand out in Others Land this week, so let’s take this time to touch on a team that I was deathly frightened that I would have put on the page: Boise State!
If you’ve been living under a rock, you may not know that the Broncos started the 2025-26 season in the absolute worst possible way, losing at home to Hawaii Pacific. Not Hawaii. Hawaii Pacific. A Division II team. Many thought that this loss should be immediate grounds for disqualification from any future at-large discussion. I took a more level-headed approach, realizing that a season is not one game, and even a defeat as astronomically atrocious as that can be counteracted with good work down the line. I also realized that a loss to a Division II team represents a strange quirk in how team-sheet metrics work, as at least three of the six (KenPom, T-Rank, and the all-important WAB), as well as NET itself, are unimpacted by results against non-Division I teams. (KPI does factor in that loss; I couldn’t find anything on whether or not SOR or BPI account for it.)
That means that Boise State essentially had somewhat of a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for that loss, so long as they could make up for it down the stretch; they could not, as they stumbled to a 1-5 start in Mountain West play at the start of 2026, falling to 9-8 overall. Case closed, right? Not so fast—here come the Broncos, winners of six of seven, the latest coming in Albuquerque to cap a season sweep of New Mexico. That’s when the creeping fear set in. Would I really have to debate the at-large merits of a team lost a D-II game on opening night? Hypothesize and prognosticate about how exactly the selection committee would value that loss despite it having little impact on Boise State’s metrics, without any sort of prior example to base my analysis on? Nope! The Broncos’ window was just as quickly slammed shut a second time, as they lost at home to NET #132 UNLV, their second overtime loss of the season to the Runnin’ Rebels, signaling a merciful end to my worrying… Unless, of course, Boise State goes into Logan and beats league-leading Utah State on Wednesday night. Then we get to do this aaaaall again. Spare me.
Saint Louis: Well, someone in the A-10 was bound to knock Saint Louis from unbeaten-in-2026 status sooner or later. Just didn’t think it would be Archie Miller and a Rhode Island team that has lost to Fordham, La Salle, and Loyola Chicago, all at home. College basketball, ladies and gents! And while it stinks that the Billikens’ rise all the way up to the 6 seed line in most projections is surely squashed for now, there’s no reason to think that a slip-up against a Quadrant 2 opponent after winning 18 straight games will put Saint Louis in any kind of danger. They’re still top-25 in NET, they’re still top-30 in nearly every metric, and they’re still 2-0 in Quad 1. This is a tournament team, y’all. And though this defeat stings in the moment, it may actually be huge for Saint Louis’ postseason plans down the line. As it stands, the two St. Louis first- and second-round pods for this year’s tournament are quite likely to be doled out to the 2 seeds, with tons of teams in that range (Iowa State, Purdue, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, etc.) in spitting distance of the Lou. Since Saint Louis isn’t the designated host team for the St. Louis pods, they’re legally allowed to go there, per selection committee principles. And if the Billikens can play their cards just right and up as a 7 seed when it’s all said and done… Let’s just say that the 2 seed they line up against would be none too thrilled.
Utah State: Shoutout Utah State for playing a random non-conference game in February against Memphis. We need more wacky stuff like that back in our lives! Bring back Bracket Busters, damnit! Unfortunately for the Aggies, that game looked a lot better when it was scheduled than it does today, as Memphis has since fallen from worthwhile tournament-caliber opponent to Quad 3 résumé landmine just waiting to explode. Thankfully, Utah State masterfully dodged the damage, disposing of the Tigers to the tune of a 24-point thumping. And though that result doesn’t do anything to address this team sheet’s lack of upper-tier oomph, the rest of the résumé is so solid (3-2 in Quad 1, 5-0 in Quad 2, every metric ranked 30th or better) that it doesn’t really matter. Still some work to do before a bid can be totally assured, but a 2-0 week against periphery bubblers Boise State and Nevada—two teams that the Aggies already beat in January—would have me feeling mighty confident about seeing USU in March.
Saint Mary’s: Quick aside here—how cool is it that a win at Pacific in present year is considered Quad 2? The Tigers haven’t been close to being this solid of a team since before COVID hit; now they’re pushing for a place in the NET top-100. Dave Smart is putting together one hell of a turnaround in Stockton. Back to Saint Mary’s—a win at Pacific that was once considered routine fare is now actually quite helpful, giving the Gaels a fifth Q2 victory and maintaining their firm footing in the low 30s on both the résumé and efficiency sides of the aisle, alleviating much of the pain of seeing that constant zero in the Quad 1 win column. (Virginia Tech really teased us here, winning at Clemson and moving into the NET top-50 to finally hand SMC a Q1 victory… for about three days. Then the Hokies promptly got blown out at home by Florida State to fall back out of Q1 range. Rats.) Despite this deficiency, I expect a Gaels team that’s 22-4 overall, 8-4 outside of Moraga, and ranked 27th in NET will largely get the benefit of the doubt… though I’d still plan on beating Gonzaga on the final day of February, just to make absolutely, positively sure.
Santa Clara: Well, shoot. That was Santa Clara’s chance to make a statement—to show the world that the Broncos mean business, that the WCC is not a duopoly but a triopoly instead! Alas, Gonzaga’s a really good team. And though Herb Sendek’s bunch hung with the Zags for much of the night, they couldn’t keep them from filling the cup in crunch time, giving up 39 points in the final 12 minutes to lose by 8 and likely forfeit the conference regular-season crown for good. Phooey. But all hope is not lost! Santa Clara is very much still in this thing; see the 6-5 Quad 1/2 record and metrics scattered across the high 30s and low 40s if you don’t believe me. The Broncos just need to pack a punch somewhere to show the committee that they belong. Lucky for them, they get one final opportunity to do just that: next Wednesday night in Moraga. Take care of business in San Francisco this Saturday, then finish off the season sweep of Saint Mary’s, and we may see a fresh face out of the WCC in March just yet.
Miami (OH): They can, in fact, keep getting away with it. A full three-and-a-half months into the college basketball season, the Miami RedHawks remain undefeated, the very last team in Division I men’s basketball to do so, 349th-ranked strength of schedule be damned. I think it’s easy to look at that number and shrug off the RedHawks’ 26-0 record as unimpressive, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Winning 26 in a row without stumbling once is HARD, no matter the quality of the opposition. This many games into the season, you’re basically guaranteed to have an off shooting night, or have your star player miss a game with an injury, or run into a team that can’t miss a shot to save its life, at least once. And Miami just… hasn’t. That’s the kind of feat that needs to be celebrated, not derided due to an easy schedule. If it’s so easy, then why aren’t other teams with similar SOS numbers also undefeated? With the toughest remaining game at UMass now out of the way, the RedHawks have five contests left between now and regular-season perfection, each estimated at a 70-85% chance of victory. If they close this thing out and enter the MAC tournament at 31-0, they’re making the big dance, auto-bid or not.
New Mexico: Good week for the Lobos. Pulling out a win at Grand Canyon is underrated as far as results go, even if it was a bit nerve-wracking (a 20-point lead can evaporate in an instant when you’re dealing with the Mountain West; New Mexico knows this as well as anybody), as the Lopes seem likely to finish the year in the NET top-75, giving UNM a second Quad 1 win alongside their critical December victory at VCU. And while blasting Air Force by 37 doesn’t help the résumé in the slightest, it’s a better outcome than any other alternative. With other bubble teams like TCU and San Diego State falling on Tuesday night, I’m willing to bet that New Mexico would be straddling the committee’s cut line if the bracket were crafted today—either just on the inside or just out. They’re likely going to need to do a lot of winning in other arenas to feel better about their outlook, as three of the last five are on the road. Good thing the Lobos are 5-1 outside of Albuquerque in 2026.
San Diego State: Not exactly a banner Tuesday night for the Aztecs. That might be underselling it—DISASTROUS Tuesday night for the Aztecs is a little more on the nose. Entering the day on the precipice of an at-large bid, appearing in just about every bracketologist in America’s Last Four In or First Four Out, San Diego State proceeded to have its worst offensive showing of 2026, scoring just 63 points on 35% shooting in a home loss to Grand Canyon, the Aztecs’ second defeat to the Lopes in the span of a month. (The Mountain West’s most iconic program getting swept by a conference greenie… The future is now, old man.) But the misery didn’t end there, as seven hours north, Nevada got whomped by 16 at San Jose State as 11-point favorites, a Quad 4 loss that sent the Wolf Pack careening from 59th in NET to 70th. And that means that SDSU’s lone Q1 win of the season—a 73-68 victory in Reno on Jan. 6—is now in danger of falling out of the top quadrant entirely. That three-game spell against Utah State, New Mexico, and Boise State starts in a week, and it’s never looked more crucial than it does now.
VCU: Well, it all comes down to Friday. The Rams have done exactly what’s been asked of them to stay afloat in the bubble picture, winning night after night, biding their time in Next Four Out for almost a month at this point, in anticipation of Feb. 20’s showdown in Chaifetz Arena: VCU’s one and only chance in the regular season to secure a Quad 1 win. (Thanks for nothing, Virginia Tech.) Toppling mighty Saint Louis in their own dojo will not be easy; VCU will predictably enter the game as major underdogs, facing a predicted spread of 8 points in KenPom and 11 points in Torvik. But the Billikens can bleed, as Rhode Island proved on Tuesday, and the Rams have overcome adversity numerous times just to get here, trailing in the second half against each of Saint Joseph’s, Davidson, and, most recently, George Washington, finding a way to power through every time en route to this 10-game winning streak. If it doesn’t extend to 11, the Atlantic 10 auto-bid is likely the only way out.